Part Time Networker In A Web 2.0 World

Seacret Direct

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 14 May 2013 17:56:00 +0000

If you are looking to learn more about the company of Seacret Direct, you have come to the right place! This will provide you with a brief overview of the company. I've also written an extensive and comprehensive Seacret Direct overview as well.

The human body is very complicated. The skin is what protects it. This is what Seacret is all about. It is completely centered around the The Dead Sea. There is much significant historical context around The Dead Sea because of its highly concentrated form of salts and minerals.

The problem is if you don't live in Israel you aren't going to be able to fly to The Dead Sea to bathe in it on a regular and consistent basis. Therefore, what Seacret has done is develop a suite of products made out of the minerals that come from The Dead Sea to treat the skin.

The end result is people are looking younger, having better texture of skin and simply looking and feeling better about themselves.

Here is The Story of Seacret as told on the companies website:

The Dead Sea's minerals have been used for centuries to achieve the look of younger, more beautiful skin and our founders wanted to bring these rejuvenating powers to American consumers. After acquiring product-rights in 2005, we began selling our Dead Sea products throughout the United States and discovered that customers could not get enough of these extraordinary ingredients.

As sales began to skyrocket, we were able to diversify our product line. We continued to grow rapidly due to the combination of strong work ethic, a powerful product line, team dedication, and the growing demand for rare minerals from the Dead Sea.
As revolutionary as our products are, we know the heart and soul of this company comes from a passion to improve lives. Helping people achieve younger, healthier skin and empowering our sales team to grow stronger requires this passion to share our SEACRET™ with the world.

We knew instantly that the way to truly create a growing movement and passion for entrepreneurship was to offer everyone the same opportunity we have and to allow others to benefit from our organization's remarkable growth.

The focus at SEACRET™ is to help others reap the rewards of the American dream. We knew we do this providing them with the right financial vehicle backed by a world-class product line. We have already sold over $500,000,000 of SEACRET™ products through retail channels, and we know that this number is just the beginning.

We are now passionately looking for people to share the dream of helping others achieve more. We believe that inside each of us lies a passion to achieve greatness in this precious and short life. SEACRET™ aims to ignite greatness in our representatives by allowing them to help define their own future and shape the direction of SEACRET™ moving forward.

What's The Deal With Nerium International?

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 04:40:00 +0000

So Nerium International has been making a lot of noise in the Direct Sales industry. The company has been in business for a little over a year now and is experiencing lots of success and breaking lots of records! So I decided to gather some resources for you. If you are considering Nerium International, I hope that these resources will help you get the information that you need so you can make an informed decision as to whether Nerium International is right for you.

To start, whenever you evaluate any company, you want to take a look at their compensation plan. The compensation plan is simply a fancy word that describes how the company pays you. I have taken a look at the Nerium Compensation Plan and wrote a nice review to let you know what I think about it, the benefits of it and the disadvantages of it.

As you know there is a lot of buzz that is surrounding Nerium International right now. As a prospect for a home based business or as an experienced relationship marketing professional, you want to know whether Nerium is a bunch of hype or whether it is truly living up to the buzz surrounding the company.

Jake Oliver is an experienced online entrepreneur that decided to write an article sharing his thoughts about Nerium. In Jake's article, he discusses the company, the Nerium International product, the compensation plan, and answers the question of whether you should join Nerium. You can read more about what Jake had to say about Nerium by reading his article

I also believe you should hear from people who are in Nerium themselves and get their take on it. Obviously, they are biased because they absolutely have a financial interest in the decision that you make. With that said, that still doesn't take away from the fact that they are excited about the opportunity for a reason. Here are some thoughts from Mark Smith, a good friend of mine and Nerium's #1 income earner.

A few things to think about for all network marketers.

1) Nerium just finished its largest month in production in the company history.

2) We have more people pre-registered for our up coming regional event in Vegas in April then our national convention last had year. So this will be our biggest event ever!

3) It was just announced that Nerium is the fastest company ever to get in the top 100 list of Direct Selling companies in the world.

4) It was just announced that Nerium posted $100,000,000.00 its first full year in business!!

5) We recognized 56 new six & seven figure earners at our last event in Nashville March 2013 alone and already have a whole new list for this month.

6) This week Nerium will receive a very significant award at the upcoming direct sales symposium in Dallas in front of the top 600 CEO's in our industry.

With all this said we are not even 2 yrs old. We have only launched one of products and one country. Don't miss this one. We are about to kick in phase TWO!

My wife and I are about to go on our next run. We broke 100K a month within our first year in Nerium and are well past that now. We are looking for network marketers who want a home. We have the strongest compensation plan in the industry. A never before seen free inventory program. The most advanced social media marketing platform of any company and there is so much more to talk about. Inbox me if you want to have a confidential conversation on the true power of the Nerium machine. The success of Nerium is undeniable at this point. The question is are you going to sit there and watch it pass you by? Or jump in and ride the wave?

I hope you find this information helpful towards helping you make an informed decision on Nerium International. If you decide that Nerium is not for you, I highly recommend that you check out the business opportunity that I feel is the best business opportunity available.

If you decide that Nerium is for you and you are interested in learning a proven system that you can use to supercharge your recruiting in Nerium, check out these powerful recruiting strategies and techniques.

Why Network Marketing Doesn't Get Respect

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 00:39:00 +0000

When I first joined the network marketing industry almost 7 years ago, I always wondered why network marketing doesn't get the same level of respect as other business models.

Here you have an industry that has millions of participants all over the world. Tens of thousands of people have been able to earn a full time income. Thousands of people have been able to earn a 6 figure income. Hundreds of people have been able to earn a 7 figure income. And a select few have even been able to earn an 8 figure income.

However, some events over the last several weeks and months have really allowed me to see why network marketing doesn't get respect. I believe it is the same reason why religious people don't get respect and why politicians don't get respect.

Network Marketers Don't Practice What They Preach!

Here we have an industry that is SUPPOSE to be about personal development. It is SUPPOSE to be about building people up. However, everywhere you turn, all you see is people engaging in behavior that clearly lacks the personal development we profess to preach. Everywhere you turn, all you see is people tearing people down instead of building people up.

Recently, one of my colleagues in the network marketing industry reached a certain milestone in her business and I congratulated her for it. She is NOT a part of my company. She is in a different company, with a completely different product line from what I am marketing. Yet it wouldn't surprise me if I was the only distributor outside of her company who congratulated her.

Why? Because instead of being happy for her success, many distributors would see her success as a threat to their success. ESPECIALLY if they are in a company that markets the same type of product that she does.

In addition to that, a number of people this year recently made a decision to resign from the network marketing company that I am a part of and work with other network marketing companies. It was very interesting to see responses as these people made their decisions.

Some people in my company felt that because these people left, they needed to DEFEND the opportunity available in my company. Some of the people that left felt the need to publiclly trash the company that they just left and even specific individual distributors within the company. Others felt the need to publiclly trash the people that left.

Is this what the network marketing industry is all about?

In The Business School For People Who Like Helping People by Robert Kiyosaki, chapter 5 talks about one of the values of network marketing. He identifies this value as "Friends Who Will Pull You Up, Not Push You Down."

Yet, to ME it seems like that friendship in this industry is conditional. I am only your friend if you are in the same business as me. If I leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore. If you leave to do another business, I'm not your friend anymore.

This is not what I was sold when I joined this industry. However, unfortunately, this seems to be the reality in this industry.

I have friends that are in different companies from the one that I'm in currently. I have friends in the company that I'm currently in. I also have friends that WERE in the company that I'm in that have left, but I still consider them my friends. I even have friends that have left the industry all together. That's because I was always taught that friendship was based on the quality of the relationship that you have with that person, not whether or not they agree to build the same business that I build.

If we in the network marketing industry ever want the industry to get the respect it deserves, we must first become WORTHY of that respect. It starts with actually PRACTICING the so called PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT that we preach!

I'll conclude this note with some thoughts:

#1 - People are going to leave your company. It's a fact of life. This doesn't make them bad people. It doesn't make them hypocrites. It simply means that they no longer have the vision for the company that they had when they first got started FOR WHATEVER REASON and have decided to part ways and go with something that they have a vision for.

So unless those people are raiding your organization in violation of their distirbutor agreement, wish them well and keep on moving. Because the bottom line is NONE of those people are responsible for providing for you and your family. That is YOUR responsibility and YOUR responsibilty alone. Your kids don't want to hear that the reason why you are getting evicted out of your house is because JOE HEAVY-HITTER left your company and now you can't make money anymore.

#2 - Making a decision to leave a company can be a difficult decision. If that's a decision that you choose to make, go ahead and do what you have to do and move on. It's completely unnecessary to publicly trash the company that you left or individual distributors within that company. I read "How To Win Friends & Influence People" many times and I don't seem to recall that being in one of the chapters!

Now you might have left because you saw some very serious concerns about the viability of the business model. Heck, you might not have even left on your own accord, you might have even been terminated. Quite frankly, you might have even been terminated unjustly.

You might have friends in your former company that you are concerned about. However, I can assure you, trash talking your previous company is NOT going to make your friends see your point of view. If ANYTHING it's going to make them MORE likely to RESIST your point of view.

#3 - To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose in heaven. Not everybody is going to be involved in a particular network marketing company or even the industry for the rest of their lives.

For instance, I can tell you right now, I will NOT be actively involved in network marketing forever. I love the industry. I love the relationships that I have built because of it. I love the personal development that I have experienced because of it.

However, some of the goals that I have in life, being a distributor for a network marketing company isn't going to be enough to make these goals a reality. My wife and I plan on being on the Forbes 400. Everybody on that list is either the owner of a billion dollar business or a billion dollar investor, NOT a distributor for a network marketing company. So in order for that goal to become a reality for us, we will have to eventually make the transition to a vehicle that can make the Forbes 400 a reality.

I hope that when I do make the decision to leave that my relationship with you wasn't based on my allegiance to a company or an industry.

Finally, recongize that opportunity is unlimited! Opportunity is not ONLY found in ONE specific network marketing company. Opportunity isn't ONLY found in JUST the network marketing industry. When you have TRUE opportunity, it does not get diminished just because others don't value the opportunity. In fact, some of the greatest opportunities in world history were not recognized by the VAST MAJORITY of people.

Let us practice what we preach in network marketing. When we do this, I believe the industry will get far more respect than it gets now.

And if you agree with me, please share this with your colleagues in the industry. The more people that embrace this message, the more attractive our industry will be to the masses.

The Death Of Hype In Network Marketing Online?

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 23:02:00 +0000

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It's no secret that there has been a lot of hype in network marketing online. Some of the claims that people in the industry out there are making is absolutely ridiculous. Because of this, I believe that prospects and distributors in the industry are at a point where they are beginning to start tuning out the hype and looking for leaders who can demonstrate value that is realistic and achievable.

I recently got invited to a webinar discussing this exact topic. If you are a network marketing distributor that uses funded proposals and affiliate marketing as a front end to your network marketing opportunity, I believe that this can be one of the most important videos that you will ever watch this year.

Even if you are a traditional network marketing distributor, this video can help you. You're not going to want to watch it from the standpoint of the particular online marketing tactics that are discuss. Rather, you will want to watch it to identify some of the common themes being presented that have application even if you are using a traditional network marketing approach. Themes such as creating value, demonstrating leadership and other principles that apply regardless of marketing approach.

I really want you to pay close attention to this information because I believe one of the reasons why network marketing has such a bad reputation is because of the hype, the exaggeration and the "fake it till you make it" philosophy that has permeated the industry. It's ridiculous and it gives us all as an industry a bad name.

Mike Klinger is a sharp guy and the real deal. He addresses this issue in the online context, but I believe that even if that is not your context, you can get a lot out of the video.

So check out The Climate of "Hype" is Changing (Make More With Less Marketing) and let me know what you like about it.

And if you haven't yet checked out my free report on the 7 strategies that I personally use to build an unlimited list of prospects for my network marketing opportunity, go ahead and check that out as well. It is free after all!

The Importance Of The First Pay Check

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 01:57:00 +0000

Would you like to have a larger amount of your organization stick around and build the business? If so, the best way to do this is to focus on getting your new distributors their first pay check. This one simple action is in my opinion the biggest contributing factor towards retaining distributors on your team.

In the 5+ years that I've been involved with my particular company, 38% of the distributors that have joined my particular downline still have an active distributor status. This means that they have remained a customer with the company, active doesn't mean that they are still out consistently doing business.

However, when I look at all of the distributors that have signed up at least ONE customer since they joined the business, more than HALF of those distributors still have an active distributor status. The number is actually 54%. If you take a look at all of the distributors in my organization who have signed up at least 5 customers personally, almost 70% (69%) of those distributors still have an active distributor status.

What would your business look like if 7 out of every 10 distributors that joined your organization at a bare minimum, remained an active customer with you to a minimum of over $400 per year?That would be a very nice business for you indeed! That's why it is important that you have the devotion of a devote religious person towards getting the distributors in your organization their first pay check!

So what can you do to increase the amount of distributors in your organization that get their first check? Here are some pointers:

#1) Take personal responsibility for the distributors that join your team, not just the ones that you personally sponsor. If their sales are commission-able to you, it is your responsibility to reach out to them and make sure they are on the right track.

#2) As you teach them the business, use the TELL-SHOW-DO-REVIEW approach to train them. For example, let's say you are teaching a new distributor how to invite their prospects to take a look at one of your company's marketing tools. Here is the best way to teach them this process.

TELL - Explain to them how to invite their prospect to look at the marketing tool.

SHOW - Have them call one of their prospects and introduce that prospect to you. Then get on the line and invite that prospect to look at the marketing tool. The new associate should be taking notes on how you do it.

DO - Have them call another prospect and invite the prospect to look at the tool themselves. You watch them while they do this.

REVIEW - Give them feedback on what they did. Complement them for taking action. If they did anything wrong, provide correction. Then complement them again.

If you follow this process, the distributors in your organization will get their first check faster. They will be excited. Their belief level will grow and they will want to repeat the activity so they can get another check and another one. The more checks they get, the more checks you get! That's the power behind getting one of your new distributors their first pay check and why it should be your mission in life!

The Tortoise and the Hare In Network Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 18:19:00 +0000

Have you ever heard of the children's story called The Tortoise and the Hare? If you haven't, I've included a link to the story. Please read the story first and then continue reading this blog because you will need to be familiar with the story first before you can understand the points that I'm going to make as to how this correlates to building a network marketing business.

There are a lot of "hares" in network marketing. In the almost 6 years that I've been involved in this industry, I see them all of the time. One of my mentors Jeff Olson tells a story in his training about the "insurance guy" that is very typical in network marketing.

You recruit a guy who is the #1 insurance salesperson in his company. You are very excited because this guy has a sales background and a proven track record of being successful in sales. This guy goes out and in his first week he sponsors 5 of his sales buddies. The very next week his buddies each go out and sponsors 5 of their friends. Now you are so excited! You say to yourself "I am so happy, I finally found one of my A players"

90 days later, none of them are in the business anymore and you are standing around wondering what happened.

Anybody can get off to a fast start in the network marketing industry. However, the real question is, are you able to build a sustainable business that is going to spit off cashflow to you and your family for the rest of your life? Only a select few are able to do that because only a select few have the discipline and the fortitude necessary to build and create that type of business.

I've seen people in my company race through the compensation plan. Some of them have even created checks of $2,000, even $5,000 their very first month in the company. However, because they had the mentality of the hare, they weren't able to build a sustainable business and as a result, they are no longer involved in the business.

In fact, I know of a number of people in my company who were able to earn a $100,000 income over a 12 month period who are either no longer with the company or if they are still with the company, they aren't earning anywhere near that amount right now. I've even seen people who were able to earn a $250,000 income over a 12 month period who are either no longer with the company or are not earning anywhere near that amount.

It doesn't matter if you build this business slow or fast. What really matters is your ability to build this business steady. The person that is able to engage in a steady consistent stream of activity over a sustained period of time is the person who will be able to build the lifetime residual income that we all dream about in this industry.

So which one are you? The tortoise or the hare?

What Does A Day In The Life Of A Part Time Distributor Look Like?

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 19:54:00 +0000

One of the most common questions asked by distributors is what should your day look like when you are building your network marketing business on a part time basis? I decided to give you some insight into a typical day for myself and many of my fellow distributors who are building a business successfully part time.

Monday through Friday you likely have to work at your full time job. You will need to factor in time for commuting to and from work. If you have kids, you are likely involved in getting your kids ready for school. So generally speaking, you are probably not going to do a lot of business related tasks in the morning.

However, some tasks that you still might do in the morning include checking your commission statements from the day before (if you get paid daily), checking your genealogy reports to see how your organization grew from the day before, checking email, reading a personal development book and listening to a personal development audio. If you come across any good prospects during your commute, you might pique their interest and get their contact information or share with them a marketing tool.

During the day you are likely working on your job so there is no activity done during that time. The only exception might be lunch time where you might be taking a prospect to lunch to present to them your opportunity or using a portion of your lunch time to make follow up phone calls to your hottest prospects and distributors on your team.

After getting off work is when the bulk of your network marketing activity takes place as a part time distributor. If your business or team does weekly opportunity meetings and in person trainings, you are likely going to be at one or both of those events one or two nights a week. The best use for your time besides those events is doing presentations for distributors who are on your team. It is my experience that it is 20 to 100 times easier for you to recruit a distributor for one of your team members than it is for you to get your own recruit because your distributor can edify you.

If you don't have any meetings, trainings and your team members aren't putting you to work, your evenings should be spent on your own personal prospecting. My preference is to work the phones and use websites and/or presentation phone recordings to make the initial exposure. Prospects that are interested in more information, I then direct them to either an opportunity meeting or I might sit down with them in person and do an in person presentation. If they are long distance, dropping a marketing tool in the mail is also an option for me as well.

On the weekends you can go crazy and work your business like you are full time and I know a lot of distributors that do that. I personally prefer to try to keep my weekends open for my family and my spiritual development. That doesn't mean that I never work my business on weekends. If I have a team member who I working with, I will absolutely make myself available to them on a Saturday or even a Sunday after church.

I might also work weekends if my company is having a big regional event on a particular weekend. However, I prefer to limit my own personal prospecting to Monday through Friday so I can leave the weekend for my family. I don't want to be one of those husbands or fathers that spend so much time working my wife and kids never see me. The good thing is that even though I'm technically not working, there are opportunities that present themselves to get some productive activity done even while I'm supposedly not working. My family isn't going to kill me if I have a couple of prospects to follow up with that it is easier to reach on a weekend.

Notice nowhere in my schedule do I have things like labeling my marketing tools, pushing papers or working on my website and designing pay per click ads. While I do engage in those activities, none of that I count against my hard core network marketing time of 10 hours a week. I do that stuff above and beyond if I have time to do it. I have enough prospects that I could recruit forever if I never exposed a new prospect again.

This is what the time of a part time network marketing distributor should look like. Now evaluate your time and see if this is what you are spending your time doing. If not, I recommend that you make some revisions and that you do them quickly!

Should You Get A Job?

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

A lot of distributors get started in the network marketing industry because they want to quit their jobs and create a lifestyle of time freedom and financial independence. However, when you are first getting started in the industry it can take some time before you start to experience the success that you are looking for.

Jeff Olson, one of the most successful network marketing distributors in the history of this industry got started many years ago in NSA. Within 2 years, he had gone from brand new to one of the top distributors in the company. However, he acknowledges that in the beginning, he didn't make any money because he reinvested his commission checks back into the business in the form of tools, meeting rooms, etc.

Olson is the exception in many cases and not the rule. In my dealings with many of the top distributors in many network marketing companies, whether it is in person, listening to their story or reading their books, the overwhelming majority of them report that it took them about 5 years of struggle before they were able to put the pieces together and really begin to build a financially successful business.

That means unless you prove to be the exception and not the rule, you cannot rely on the commissions from your network marketing business for several months in the best case scenario. More likely, it's going to be several years before you will be in a position to use your network marketing commissions to support yourself.

If you are in a position where you need your network marketing income to support yourself, I would answer "YES" you should get a job if you are building your network marketing business. Some of you might actually need two jobs depending on how much money you make in your chosen profession.

While many network marketers love to bash jobs, the fact is, jobs provide a number of benefits. If you have a full time job that covers your living expenses, the first and most important benefit is that the job gives you the income that you need to support yourself and your family. Try turning that negative spouse around when you have to pawn the television to make your minimum product order because you don't have a job and business is slow!

Another benefit that jobs provide is networking opportunities. My strongest organization to date came from two former co-workers. If I never worked at that job, I would have never met those co-workers. If I never met those co-workers, my organization would be a fraction of the size that it is today. Working with the same group of people 6 to 8 hours a day gives you a tremendous opportunity of relationship building. I'm still friends with many of my former co-workers today!

A job also serves as a great recruiting tool. The late great Jim Rohn use to talk about this a lot. He said when he first got started, he was working full time in farming and part time as a network marketing distributor. He use to tell his prospects "I am working full time on my job and I'm working part time on my fortune." Eventually, he got to the point where his part time network marketing business was making over $1000 a month.

Here were his comments...

$1000 a month on a full time basis, NOBODY wants to hear your story. $1000 a month on a part time basis, EVERYBODY wants to hear your story.

Finally, if your job provides you with income in excess of what you need to support yourself, the job can be an excellent resource to generate income to re-invest back into your business. Your business will grow much slower if you have to depend upon only your commissions to re-invest in your business. Having excess cash flow allows you to make investments faster and thus enjoy those return on investments faster.

So don't feel ashamed if you need to get a job. You might even need to get two jobs! Just know that you aren't the only one. I know distributors who worked as many as three jobs, continued to build their network marketing business along side of those three jobs and eventually was able to make more money in their network marketing business then they made from their three jobs combined! So it can be done. You just have to be willing to make the necessary sacrifices to make it happen and be willing to put in the time.

What if you are really bad and it takes you 20 years to build a passive six figure income in network marketing? Would it be worth it? You're already going to work on your job for 40 years and 98% of you reading this will not retire to a six figure income from your job pension or social security. So it would be worth it if it takes 20 years.

However, if you don't have a job and you are unable to make the investments necessary to build your network marketing business, you could end up a casualty in the industry.

What A Balanced Network Marketing Compensation Plan Looks Like

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

This weekend my company just announced some modifications to the compensation plan that I am very excited about. I've noticed over the last couple of years that the compensation plan, although great, could have been a lot more motivating and rewarding to the sales force, if a few simple modifications were made.

This might come as a shock to you to hear me say this. The reason why is because when you read most network marketing distributors blogging about their company, they will tell you nothing but the positives about their company. You will never hear from them what they don't like about their company.

If you're ever evaluating a network marketing company, do you want to know a good question to ask? Ask what that person doesn't like about the company. Watch how they try to skate around that question or try to say something like "there's nothing they don't like about their company."

Here's what I didn't like about my company, up until this weekend.

To me, the compensation plan wasn't very balanced. The way the compensation plan was structured previously, a new person could move up three levels in the compensation plan with as little as 15 people. However, on average, you probably needed a few hundred people on your team to generate the volume necessary to get to the higher levels in the compensation plan.

This created two challenges:

#1) A new person could move up three levels within a few weeks. However, it might take them months, if not years to get to the next level. They get frustrated from a lack of progress and quit the business.

#2) A new person could move up three levels within a few weeks. They get stuck there because it takes a while to get the team and the volume necessary to move up further. Their best people also move up three levels within a few weeks. They only get to enjoy that override income for a few weeks and then the income gets cut off because their most productive people catch up to their level.

So what my company did is they made two modifications. First, they increased the requirements to move up. This makes moving up the compensation plan more balanced and by the time you get up to the higher levels with the new requirements, you will have the production necessary to move up because you needed it to get to those levels to begin with.

The second thing they did was they created more bonus opportunities at all levels of the compensation plan. The end result is that the people at the lower levels could make the same type of money, if not more than the people at some of the higher levels make now. The bonuses are based on the best activity in my opinion, the ability to help new people get started and make money.

The end result is that the people at the higher levels get to make money on the production of their team for a longer period of time because it's a lot more difficult to move up the compensation plan in a few weeks than it is now. Although it's more difficult to move up, the distributors are making more money at the lower levels so that they don't need to be at as high of a level to make the same type of money.

That's great for me because I now have a compensation plan that is very motivating to build into. However, unless you plan on joining my company, that doesn't really help you.

So how can you determine whether you are looking at a balanced network marketing compensation plan? Ask yourself the following questions:

#1 - If you are just getting started, how many customers will you need in order to make your money back? If it is a lot, or if it is a little but you have to sell them a lot, you are probably working too hard. This isn't a franchise. Making your money back should be very easy. You should be able to do it within your first month and it should be possible to do within your first couple of days if you want.

#2 - What does it take to move up to the higher levels? Is it too easy? If it's too easy, you are going to get to a point that everyone gets stuck at and you are going to see a lot of people drop out of the business at that level. If it's too hard, people will get frustrated and quit.

It is NOT a good thing to go to an opportunity meeting, see a few people at the bottom, A LOT of people at the middle and a few people at the top. It's also NOT a good thing to see everybody at the bottom and very few people at the top. There should be a balance, a few at the bottom and a few at the middle. There will always be less at the top because most people aren't willing to do what it takes to get to the top.

#3 - Does your company pay bonuses in addition to the commissions you make for product sales? If so, what are those bonuses based upon? The best bonus, in my opinion is one based on new people within an organization getting their first sales and/or recruits. It should reward the sponsor as well as the people higher in the compensation plan. Bonuses for reaching organizational sales volume are not a good idea because people will tend to hit that volume and then fall back.

Taking a look at these 3 areas of evaluation will help you to determine if your compensation plan is a balanced one. If it isn't that doesn't necessarily mean you should quit. Mine's wasn't, but all of the other areas that made up the opportunity were strong enough to deal with the limitations. There's no such thing as a perfect company so evaluate the other areas as well.

Network Marketing - Not For The Faint At Heart!

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 16:24:00 +0000

Network marketing is a tough business! It is a simple business, but it is a tough business to really be successful at.

I've been a circular distributor, an administrative assistant, a technical support representative, a trainer, an operations manager, a freelance writer and most recently a social media and internet marketing manager.

I've owned or in some cases still own a computer consulting business, an ebay business, an information and affiliate marketing business, a freelance writing business and a social media and internet marketing company.

Network marketing is more difficult than any of those businesses combined!

You participate in a business model that is still under-appreciated and in some cases, even ridiculed and violently opposed. You have to engage in two activities that many people fear more than death. Those activities are selling and public speaking. Once you actually find people who are interested in joining, you get the fun task of trying to get people to do something whom you have no management control or authority over them.

It's easy to manage someone when you are the boss, they are the employee and if they don't do their job to your satisfaction you can fire them. If you really want to test your management skills, try getting independent people to do something.

It's like "herding cat" as the late great Jim Rohn use to say.

However, when you truly decide to commit to network marketing, the benefits far exceed the challenges involved. Yes you can make money and a lot of it in network marketing. There are also non-monetary benefits that exceed even the monetary benefits.

The relationships that you build can often be lifelong friendships that extend far beyond the business building aspect. The personal and leadership development that you get to engage in is momentum. Network marketing simply put, just makes you an all around better and attractive person.

So don't expect your journey in network marketing to be easy. It won't be.

Don't expect to drive the fancy car, to live in the dream house and go on the fancy vacations your first 90 days in the business or even your first year. You probably won't.

Do understand that success in network marketing is a marathon and not a sprint. There will be ups and downs. There will be peaks and valleys. It is not for the faint at heart!

However, if you are willing to engage in the process... If you are willing to stick with the journey... If you are willing to do what it takes to build a business, even if you decide a few years for now that the business is not for you, your life will be better for it and you will be able to build upon the principles that you learned in network marketing to progress in whatever other area of life you decide to pursue.

Simple Strategies For A Busy Professional In MLM

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 22:03:00 +0000

As a busy professional I don't have a lot of time to build my MLM business. Therefore, any strategy that will save me time is something that I am very interested in learning more about. As I have built my business over the years, I have found that the following strategies have allowed me to save time and get better results.

#1 - Utilize a contact manager system to track prospects. If this system also has an autoresponder and broadcast email capability, this is even better. With a system like this I can send out one email to thousands of prospects. This way, even if I never connect with them via the phone at least they are still hearing from me in some way. An even bigger plus is if the system allows you to track whether a specific prospect opened up an email or visited your website. This saves me time because I can decide to call the prospects that visited the website first.

#2 - Have multiple distributors in your company's contact information in multiple time zones. This comes in very handy when you are looking for someone to do a 3 way phone call for you. What I do is send out a text message to everybody on my distributor contact list asking who is available for a 3 way call. This way if I get my prospect on the phone and they looked at the tool, I immediately know who is available.

#3 - Use tools and events. I simply don't have the time to sit down with every single prospect for my business and do a personal presentation. Therefore, I try to avoid those as much as possible. Instead, I prefer to direct my prospects to a tool, such as a website, a pre-recorded conference presentation, or a presentation on DVD. I then like to direct them to a live event in their area. This way I leave most of my running around to support new team members instead of chasing after prospects.

#4 - Plug new distributor into a training system. Every new associate I personally recruit, I send them to a training presentation online so that they can get the basics right away. I then schedule a more in depth training either in person or over the phone but only after they looked at the online training. If a new distributor can't even take the time to look at an online training, I know they aren't going to take the time to engage in the activities to build the business. For ongoing training, I plug them into live training events in their area and training calls.

These four strategies have saved me a ton of time and I really wouldn't be able to build the business effectively without them. If you aren't using these strategies, I hope you will begin to use them and get some benefit out of them. I know that they have been very helpful for me in my business.

The Most Important Statistic In Your Network Marketing Business

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

What is the most important statistic in your network marketing business? Many leaders will say product sales as most compensation plans pay you based upon the dollar amount of product sales that take place in your organization.

Other leaders will argue that the number of new distributors joining your organization is the most important number. Their argument would be compelling because the best way to grow your commission is to grow the number of people out making sales.

Still others will argue that the number of exposures made is the most important number. Exposures are the amount of people that you share your business opportunity with. This is a compelling argument because nothing can happen unless an exposure is made.

I however believe that there is another statistic that is actually the most important statistic in your network marketing business. I've heard one of my friends say this very well. Considering that he went from brand new to earning over $100,000 a year in his network marketing business in a little over 2 years, I think he knows a little bit about network marketing success.

He says that success in this business is based on the number of people that you can take from not knowing about your opportunity to knowing about your opportunity.

I agree with him for several reasons...

#1 - We all want to make money and commission is important. However, there are too many factors outside of our control that determine the amount of commission you earn.

I've given killer presentations and watched people not buy anything. I've also given no presentation at all and have had people come to me and buy from me. Your team plays a big role in commissions and we all know you cannot control what they do.

The same is true for recruiting. We have very little influence on who gets recruited and who doesn't.

#2 - You can expose a lot of people to your business opportunity. However, just because they were exposed doesn't mean that they actually look at it. I know a lot of distributors in this industry who have exposures down pack yet not making money because they can't get anyone to look at their information.

#3 - The number of people that look at your opportunity closes the gap between exposures and recruits/commissions. You have significantly more control over the number of people you get to look at your opportunity by doing a better exposure, making enough follow up calls to get them to look at it and actually sitting down with them or inviting them out to an event so that you know for a fact they looked at it. Also the number of people that look at your opportunity have a much closer relationship to your recruits/commissions than the number of people you simply expose.

Are you tracking the number of people that have gone from not knowing about your business to knowing about your business? The only people that are included in this number are the number of people that you can verify have looked at some information about your business. This number is gold and if you track it, you will see a relation between this number and the number of people that sign up with you.

Evaluating Prospecting Strategies For Your MLM Business

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 19:16:00 +0000

I've been having some conversations recently with one of the leaders in my organization in regards to evaluating prospecting strategies. If you are not where you want to be in your MLM business, I highly recommend that you read some of these insights. Without exaggeration I can say that this is the most important blog post that I have written this year.

Being successful in a MLM business requires mastering a number of key skills. One of the most important skills to master is recruiting. If you aren't a good, or at the very least a decent recruiter, you will never have the opportunity to develop many of the other key skills in this industry. The reason why is because you need a team to work with to develop those other skills.

One reason why I believe so many distributors struggle with recruiting is because it takes us outside of our comfort zone. We have no problems going to the meetings, listening to the conference calls and reading the books. Talking to people about our business? That's scary. That's uncomfortable. We might face rejection.

However, another reason why I believe many distributors struggle is because they never take the time to truly analyze the effectiveness of their prospecting strategies.

It doesn't help that many of our leaders like to prescribe "Talk To More People" as the solution for every recruiting problem. They are correct in many cases because if you're only prospecting one person a month like a lot of distributors in the industry, that's simply not going to cut it.

However what about the people that are talking to dozens, if not hundreds of people a month and are still getting nowhere? I don't care how many times you bang your head against a brick wall. Banging your head more times isn't going to get you through that wall. You need to try something else.

I see in this industry a lot of debate about what are the best prospecting strategies for building a MLM organization. Some leaders only recommend you talk to people that you know in your warm market. Others have the completely opposite philosophy. They don't want you wasting your time with your friends and family.

The fact remains, these leaders recommend their particular strategies because that is what allowed them to get to where they wanted to be. That doesn't necessarily mean that this particular strategy is going to get you to where you want to be.

For instance, what if you just moved to this country from Africa. Your entire warm market, everybody that you know lives in Africa. The only person in this country that you know is your sponsor, who you met at a local Starbucks.

You know no one else in this country and your particular MLM business opportunity is not available in Africa. I don't care how much your upline preaches warm market. Warm market is not going to work for you because you don't have a warm market.

That's a pretty extreme example, but it illustrates my point that all prospecting strategies do not work equally as effectively for all distributors. Some distributors will thrive with one set of prospecting strategies. Other distributors will thrive with a completely different set of prospecting strategies.

In order to learn which strategies you will thrive with, you need to have a system for trying and evaluating prospecting strategies until you find a few that work well for you. Here is how you do this.

In evaluating any prospecting system, there are 5 areas that you need to evaluate. They are:

#1) How much time does it take to implement?

#2) How much money does it cost to implement?

#3) How many prospects are you able to get to actually look at your business?

#4) How many customers/distributors does your system generate for you?

#5) How much money do you make when you engage in your system?

To give you an example of how this works, let's evaluate two prospecting systems that you can engage in. The first system is prospecting at the mall. The second system is purchasing and calling business opportunity leads.

When evaluating any prospecting system, I recommend that you evaluate at least a minimum of 90 days of activity. The reason why is 90 days of consistent activity gives a better indicator of what could potentially happen in the future as oppose to shorter periods of evaluation.

In strategy #1, you decide that you are going to go to the mall on a Saturday morning. Your strategy is to go around the mall, meet people, engage in conversations and see if you can find some people who are potentially interested in your business opportunity. Your goal is to find 10 people every Saturday who agree to take a look at your business opportunity.

In strategy #2, you decide to purchase 100 business opportunity leads a month. Your goal is to call these leads and find people who agree to take a look at your business opportunity.

You engage in both activities over a 90 day period. At the end of the 90 days, here are your results

Strategy #1 - Prospecting At The Mall

#1) How much time does it take to implement?

36 hours of prospecting over a 90 day period.

#2) How much money does it cost to implement?

$240 in marketing tools

#3) How many prospects are you able to get to actually look at your business?

30 prospects actually look at your business.

#4) How many customers/distributors does your system generate for you?

7 customers and 3 distributors

#5) How much money do you make when you engage in your system?

$350 in commissions from personal product sales to the 7 customers.

Strategy #2 - Purchasing and Calling Business Opportunity Leads

#1) How much time does it take to implement?

15 hours of prospecting over a 90 day period

#2) How much money does it cost to implement?

$300 in costs for business opportunity leads

#3) How many prospects are you able to get to actually look at your business?

30 prospects actually look at your business.

#4) How many customers/distributors does your system generate for you?

3 customers and 3 distributors

#5) How much money do you make when you engage in your system?

$150 in commissions from personal product sales to the 3 customers.

After evaluating both strategies over a 90 day period, under this scenario, prospecting people at the mall is clearly the better strategy. It earned you $350 in commissions and when you subtract the costs for your marketing tools you are left with $110 in profit. The leads cost $300, but you only made $150 so you are losing $150 on the leads. Therefore, under this scenario you should stick with the mall prospecting and stop the leads.

Keep in mind this is a scenario for illustration purposes. If you actually employed these two strategies you might find that the leads work better for you. The point is take a hard look at what your prospecting strategies are producing for you and look for ways to either improve the strategy or replace it with a more effective strategy.

Let's throw one more caveat into the mix. Let's say from your mall prospecting, you also made an additional $100 in commissions from the sales that those new distributors made. However, from your business opportunity prospecting, you made an additional $1000 in commissions from the sales that those new distributors made?

Now you have a tougher decision. You lost money on the initial sales with the business opportunity leads, but made significantly more money when you factor in the commissions from the team you built.

In this case, you may want to try another 90 day cycle to see if those numbers continue to hold up. If so, it means that the business opportunity leads may be bringing in a higher quality of distributor and it's worth losing money on the front end to make money on the back end.

By constantly evaluating and refining what you are doing, this allows you to discover a rhythm for what works for you. Once you do this, you can prospect and recruit at will and that is when the business becomes fun!

So what about you? Are you evaluating your prospecting strategies based on hard actual data? Or are you just sticking with one strategy because that's all feel comfortable doing? If you are sticking with one strategy, how much money is that one strategy costing you? Those are the tough questions that you need to ask yourself.

If you need ideas on prospecting strategies, make sure you download my free prospecting guide that reveals the 7 strategies that I personally use to build my MLM organization.

Setting Priorities In Your Network Marketing Business

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 17:10:00 +0000

As a network marketing business owner there are a number of priorities competing for your time, attention and finances. One of the reasons why I believe distributors fail in this industry is because they fail to set the right priorities.

As a distributor there are going to be a lot of things that are promoted to you. Your company will promote tools to purchase, company trainings to attend, company conventions to attend and other resources to help you build your business.

Your upline leadership team will promote conference calls to get on, opportunity meetings to invite your prospects out to, local trainings in your area to attend, team conventions to attend and other resources to help you build your business.

Then on the internet you will be bombarded with ads and promotions from personal development experts and network marketing industry vendors. They will promote the latest book or home study course that will teach you the skills you need to succeed in this industry. They will have their own conferences and seminars to promote to you.

Because there are so many resources and information available to the average distributor, I believe that most distributors suffer from information overload. They buy all of these courses, go to all of these events, purchase all of these products and services and then never make any money because they are unable to take all of those resources and turn it into an actionable game plan to execute.

Always remember that the bottom line is that you are an independent distributor for the company that you represent. While there are a lot of resources available to you and a lot of people willing to offer their opinion on what you have to do to be successful, the bottom line is that success in network marketing is pretty much up to you.

Therefore as a distributor you need to evaluate where you are in life and what you can engage in based on the resources that you have and where you are in the business.

If your company has a weekly opportunity meeting that you can invite guest out to, should you attend that weekly meeting every single week? If you asked me that question even a couple of months ago, I would have answered an emphatic yes. However, being home with my kids has giving me the time to reflect and my position and opinion on certain matters has now changed.

Now if you asked me that question, as a general rule, I would answer yes. However, it would be a qualified yes based upon your personal circumstances. It's probably not a good idea to attend that weekly opportunity meeting if you are suppose to be at work because then you are going to get fired from your job.

It's probably not a good idea to attend that meeting if you are strapped for cash and you need that money to cover your product order that qualifies you to earn commissions to begin with.

Should you attend your company's national convention? Generally speaking, yes you should. However, there are some situations where you really shouldn't be attending your national convention. For instance, it's probably not a good idea to attend a national convention halfway across the country if your wife is 9 months pregnant at the time!

The company, the leaders and the experts promoting these resources are going to promote them very hard. That's their job and that's what they should be doing if they are offering resources that are going to legitimately help you to build your business. However, the fact remains, your business life is not over just because you couldn't attend a specific event or purchase a particular business building tool.

That being said, there are sometimes where you are going to have to make a serious sacrifice as well. This is why I say you are an independent distributor and you need to make certain decisions based upon where you are at the time.

If you have no other way of improving your situation other than this business opportunity, you might have to do some uncomfortable things such as borrow money to attend an event that you know you need to build your business. I'm not discounting the sacrifices that are necessary to build a successful business.

My point is, set the right priorities and don't make stupid decisions.

Case in point, if you've been to your weekly opportunity meeting, attended your weekly local training, listened to a company conference call, listened to two training conference calls held by your team and then you realize that you haven't exposed a single prospect to the business because all of your available business time was spent attending these events, you will probably need to cut some of these events out of your calendar and dedicate some time for prospecting and recruiting.

Commissions are not paid for event attendance. Commissions are paid for product sales. The events can help you make more product sales, but if you are not engaging in activities that create opportunities for product sales, the events are useless.

So set the right priorities in your network marketing business based on where you are today. You do this by having an end goal in mind, evaluating the benefits and costs to each action you are considering and then you prioritize based on what action is the most important action towards moving you closer to your goals.

This is how you create success in a network marketing business and as you create success, that will create more opportunities to you that may not have been available when you first got started.

Live From Your Planner And What You Planned

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

In yesterday's post I spoke about the importance of always planning the day before the day begins. Today, I'm going to speak about the 2nd part to being successful and accomplishing what you want to accomplish. That is to live from your planner and what you planned!

The first part, I'm pretty good at for the most part. I can sit down, map out my goals and what I want to accomplish. I've been dreaming big and planning big ever since I was a little kid playing with my matchbox cars and I use to pretend that all of these cars were real and that I owned all of them!

However, when it comes time to actually live from my planner and what I planned, this is the area that I struggle with.

Writing down your goals and plans is important. Doing this one step alone and nothing else will put you miles ahead of the masses. A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting down with my wife and I pulled out a goal document that we wrote up a couple of years ago. We haven't looked at it since. Yet several items that we had written down on that sheet, we have either already accomplish or we will accomplish this month in the month of September.

Bare in mind, we did nothing but write it down 2 years ago. We didn't go back to it. We didn't have a plan or strategy for how to get it. We simply wrote it down and several of the items we have already accomplished and some of the items we have accomplished before the deadline that we set to get it done by!

Now if we could accomplish this without ever looking at those goals for 2 years, imagine what we could do if we looked at those goals every single day and we actually had a strategy and a plan that we were working from? We could conquer the entire world!

That's why it is important to not just have a plan, but to actually take the time to develop a strategy for how you are going to make that plan become a reality. You then want to live from that strategy and plan your day to day activities around what are the things that you can do today that will move you the closest to reaching your goals.

Today, I am happy to report that last night, I already looked at my goals and I already identified the activities that I can do today that will move me closest towards reaching my goals. Now if only I can do this every single day, I believe great things can and will happen for me.

So that's the lesson today. Don't just write down plans and goals and never look at them again, although if you're not doing at least that, you are behind. Take the added step of constantly looking at your goals and plans and making course corrections along the way.

For more information on this important principle, I recommend that you read that article by David Byrd, Leadership Expert titled ACHIEVE the Next Level of Success With Effective Daily Choices!

Always Start The Day Before The Day Begins

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

One of the lessons that I learned from the late, great, Jim Rohn is his philosophy on time management. He has a saying that goes like this...

"Always start the day before the day begins."

What he means by this is that one of the best habits that you can develop is to plan your day out ahead of time before the day actually begins. That means that the night before, you should map out your day and identify some of the key action items that you want to accomplish during that day.

Once you have mastered this habit, there are some other habits that he identifies that will help you as well. Such as...

"Always start the week before the week begins."

"Always start the month before the month begins."

"Always start the year before the year begins."

So in keeping with Jim Rohn's philosophy, yesterday I sat down and I planned out the month of September. I identified some of my key goals, not just for my network marketing business, but for all areas of my life. I filled out my goal tracker so that I can track my progress towards my goals. I've also identified some of the high payoff activities that I can engage in that will move me closer to my goals.

I also mapped out my plan for today and all of the imperative and important activities that need to get completed today. I prioritized each activity, identifying the most important to the least important. When I start my day today I will begin with the most important activity and I will continue on until I complete as many of the activities as possible. If I have anything left over, they will be transferred until the next day.

So what about you? Are you starting your day before the day begins? That's what it takes to be successful building a network marketing business on a part time basis. You already lack the time. The activities that you need to engage in to build your business are not going to just magically get completed. They get completed when you plan your day in advance and plan time to complete those activities.

That's the most important step and it is the step that most people struggle with. In fact, most people never even engage in this step. Then, 5 years from now they wonder why they haven't made any progress in life.

The second most important step is something that I struggle with, but I am really looking to make headway in this area this month. I will talk about it on tomorrow's blog post.

The 10 In Play Philosophy

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 13:00:00 +0000

On yesterday's blog post I told you that I am back in business building mode. Today I am going to share with you a simple strategy that I use to get my activity going. This strategy is called the 10 in play philosophy and if you follow it consistently, it's only a matter of time before you are able to sponsor a new distributor into your network marketing organization.

So how does the 10 in play philosophy work? It's simple.

Having someone "in play" means that I have approached this person about my network marketing business but they haven't made a decision yet. My goal is to collect a decision from them. I don't care whether they do it or not. All I care about is that they make a decision one way or the other.

When I am building by personal sponsoring, meaning that I'm personally am the one going out and doing the recruiting, I always want to have at least 10 prospects in play at all times. If I don't have 10 in play, I need to find a way to connect with more people so that I can get at least 10 prospects in play.

Now in my case, I have way more than 10 in play. The problem is I haven't connected with any of them in a while because I took time off. So in my case, I identify the top 10 contacts that I have that are in play. I then follow up with those contacts and get them the information that they need to make a decision.

You might not have 10 people in play. If you don't, you need to get 10 people in play. If you are having trouble finding people, check out my free report on developing an Endless Stream of Prospects. You will never run out of people if you are doing the things that I talk about in my report.

So last night I went through my contacts list and identified my top 10 contacts. Now, I need to call those people, re-establish contact with them and see where they are in the evaluation process.

Most of these people I am probably going to have to give them some more information about the business. So what I'm planning to do is give them a link to my website presentation. I will set a time to follow up with them and then I will give them a follow up phone call to see what they liked most about the information.

Some of these 10 contacts might have already looked at my website. For those people I am going to get one of my associates on the phone to answer their questions and direct them to the next step. The next step might be for me to send them a package in the mail with more information or to invite them out to an event. Or the next step might be for them to sign up and I work with them to get them started.

What happens when someone makes a decision? That means they either got started or they told me that they are not interested. When someone makes a decision, they get removed from my 10 in play list. I now have 9 in play and I have to get a new person in play. In my case, I will simply go back to my list of contacts and find the next best contact who I have approached who hasn't made a decision yet. I then add them to my list and they become the 10th person in play.

If I didn't have anyone to add, I would go back to the strategies that I use in my Free MLM Prospecting Report to add new contacts to share my business with.

What happens if I call all 10 of my contacts in play and I still have more time left over? I can usually make 10 phone calls in 30 minutes and I generally have anywhere from 30 minutes to a hour a day to build my business. If I make my phone calls, I'll just find some more contacts in my list to call on, or I engage in some of the prospecting activities that I discuss in my free MLM report so that I can add to my database of contacts.

Finally, I don't call these people forever. If I call someone 4 times within a 2 week period and I don't get a response, I remove them from my in play list and I add somebody else. You need to call people multiple times because people are busy. I will be the first to admit, I don't return all my calls and if you call me only one time, you probably won't get a return phone call. Out of sight, out of mind is how the saying goes.

So make sure you adopt the 10 in play philosophy into your business. Now if you have more than a hour a day to build your business, you can increase your number in play. You can try to have 20 in play at all times. If you are full time, there's no reason why you shouldn't have at least 100 people in play at all times.

Try out the 10 in play philosophy and let me know how it is working for you.

It's Building Time!

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:07:00 +0000

Many of you may not know this unless you follow me on Facebook, but I recently became a father for the 2nd time. My wife gave birth to a healthy and very handsome baby boy! So I've pretty much taken the last 6 weeks off from working to spend time with my family.

I've done a couple of training calls and took a few three way calls here and there, and I even signed up a customer who reached out to me. However, I haven't really been seriously building my network marketing business.

The good news is that I have a team of leaders and when you have a team of leaders, the organization continues to grow whether you are personally doing anything or not. We currently have 18 new recruits and 100 sales. One of those sales was mine. The other 99 sales and ALL of the recruits came from the organization.

While I am grateful for the team that I have, I also recognize that in order to get to the next level, I need to find more leaders like the ones I have and create new lines of sponsorships with those leaders. So now that I have taken this 6 weeks to spend with the family, it's time to get back to building a network marketing organization!

So what is my strategy? It's simple. I am going to identify people that are potential prospects for my business opportunity. I am going to systematically expose them to presentation tools that do a full presentation of the service that we offer and the business opportunity that is available. I am going to follow up with those prospects until they make a decision. Those that decide to get started, I will teach them how to do the same.

That's network marketing in a nutshell. If you are in network marketing that is what you want to be spending the majority of your time doing. If you are like me and you have a very busy schedule, you don't have time to engage in a bunch of busy work that doesn't make you any money.

You cannot spend your business time reading about every little website on network marketing, buying everybody's training course and wasting time setting up the perfect landing page and doing a bunch of stuff that doesn't make you money. The large majority of your time needs to be spent on money making activity. That's talking to prospects and if you aren't doing that, you aren't making money, plain and simple.

So it's building time for me and hopefully it is building time for you as well! The rest of 2010 should be very interesting to say the least!

P.S. If you are interested in the exact strategies that I use to find people to talk to, make sure you check out and download my free report located at http://www.web204mlm.com

Local Network Marketing Strategy

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 14:33:00 +0000

Building a network marketing business in your local area is a very worthwhile endeavor. Being part time in the industry for over 5 years now if there is one thing I would change is I would have focused more on building a local team. That's not to say that I would have forsaken long distance sponsoring, because you need both. However, I would have focused most of my prospecting efforts on finding prospects in my own backyard.

There are a number of reasons why local network marketing is a powerful way to build your business. Remember, network marketing is a relationship business. It is significantly easier to build relationships with people who live within driving distance from you. Many of my closest friends in my specific business opportunity are distributors who live within my local market.

When you sponsor someone local to you, there are a number of tools that are available to you that are not available if you sponsor long distance. For example, you can sit down with them in person at a local coffee shop and personally walk them through their initial game plan. You can personally help them host an in home meeting. You can meet every week at the local opportunity meetings and local trainings. You can travel together to the big company regional events or your company's international event.

All of these elements of building the business help you build and develop a relationship with your new distributor. As a result of this, your new distributor is significantly less likely to quit. Will a lot of them still quit? Yes they will. The biggest disadvantage to network marketing is because the price of entry is so low, it's also very easy for someone to quit. However, a local person is less likely to quit than a long distance person, ESPECIALLY if at the very beginning you engaged with them and got them plugged into the local system.

So what are some strategies that you can utilize to do local network marketing recruiting? The first and most effective strategy is to start with people that you already know that live within your local area. It is ten times easier to get someone that you know to look at information about your network marketing business opportunity than it is to get someone you don't know to look at it. All we are trying to do is get them to look at the information. What they decide after that is totally up to them.

You can also expand your local market contact list by getting referrals. If you share the information with someone who is in your local market there is a good chance that they also know someone else that is in your local market. I've gotten a number of customers and distributors just by getting referrals both from people who become customers as well as people who don't.

If you've exhausted your contact and referral list or if you live in an area that you don't know a lot of people, you will need to find ways to meet new people. A good tool to use for meeting new people is to check out a website called meetup.com. This website has thousands of groups on all types of different areas of interest. Many of these groups will be in your local area, especially if you live in a highly populated area. Find some meetups that you can attend on topics that you are interested in and meet new people.

Also, be a little more friendly and outgoing as you go out and engage in living your life. Greet your neighbors. Talk to the person pumping gas on the other side of you. Talk to the waiter or waitress at the restaurants you go to. Talk to all of the people that you do business with throughout the day. I remember when I was moving, the same guy that was at the store when I picked up the truck was still at the store when I dropped off the truck. I commented on that and he proceeded to share with me about how long he has to work and how long he has to travel to get home. Needless to say, he was an easy exposure to my opportunity.

In the meantime, you will need to find people to talk to until you meet enough people in the area to build up a good pipeline of prospects. One of the fastest ways is if you have a couple of hundred bucks, purchase and call local business opportunity leads. Get some recommendations from people in the industry that you know and trust first because there are a lot of lead companies that are scams. If you are short on cash, social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter are also a great way to meet people.

Utilizing a local network marketing recruiting strategy is a great way to build an organization. I highly recommend it, even if you are mastering some of the internet marketing strategies to generate your own leads. I generate my own leads as well and I can tell you this, most of my leads are not local to me. You have to be more intentional about your local recruiting, but the extra effort is so worth it.

The Importance Of Planning Your MLM Business Ahead!

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0000

I have a very busy schedule. As a full time marketing & business professional, a husband, a father of a 2 year old daughter with a son on the way, I have a very full plate. I will readily admit I am not as consistent in building my MLM business as I know I need to be. The key factor that I have identified in influencing my consistency is my ability to plan ahead.

When I plan my days and weeks ahead of time, I find that I complete tasks a lot faster. That frees up time for me to focus on building my MLM business. However, if I don't plan ahead, certain tasks just creep up on me. The end result is I have a mountain of tasks that have to be completed within a short space of time. Any task that doesn't have a definitive deadline (a.k.a. my MLM business) gets pushed to the back burner.

I'm sure you are probably the same way. That's why it's important to plan your MLM business and everything in your life ahead of time. Before you start a new day tomorrow, write down the top 5 tasks that you need to get done that day. Make sure at least one of those tasks have something to do with building your network marketing business. Then go out there and get them done.

At the end of the day check off the tasks that you successfully completed. Look at the tasks that you didn't complete. Compare them to the tasks that you did complete. There's only one question that you want to ask yourself. For the tasks that you did complete, will they move you closer to your goals faster than the tasks that you didn't complete? If the answer is no, you need to seriously reevaluate how your prioritize your time.

I know it's tough. However, the good thing is the MLM business model is a business model in which you can build a very successful business with a limited amount of time. My upline that I work most closely with earns over $100,000 a year in this industry and yet he does this while working only 10-15 hours a week in his business. I don't know of too many other things you can do for a living where you can make that type of money working 10-15 hours a week.

Make Money MLM - The 4 Ways To Earn Money In Network Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 18:19:00 +0000

It is amazing how so many people get started in MLM and Network Marketing with the intention on making money. However, they don't engage in the necessary activities that will lead to the creation of income. Those people tend to do one of two things, both which compound the problem even further.

a) They quit and say MLM doesn't work or Network Marketing is a scam because I didn't make any money.

b) They quit their MLM business opportunity and jump to another network marketing opportunity assuming that the problem is they were with the wrong company or downline. Their hope is that now they are in this new company or with this new team that will solve their problems and now they will be able to make money.

However, the problem isn't the industry and the problem in most cases isn't the company. The problem is that this person hasn't taking the time to understand what are the things that allow you to make money in network marketing and then commit to doing those things.

Sometimes I get away from doing the things necessary as well and my income suffers as a result. However, fortunately I have come to a certain level of maturity in this industry in that I understand that the problem isn't my company, my upline or my compensation plan. The problem is me.

Also, another problem is that we do a poor job at explaining how we make money in this industry. As a result, we lose our prospects because we make things too complicated and we use a bunch of industry terminology that makes absolutely no sense to the prospect and causes them to think that what we do is an illegal scam.

Anyway, here's a quick video by Doug Firebaugh, a top industry trainer and a gentleman that spent 14 years working in the industry full time as a distributor building a million dollar organization. In this video he talks about the 4 ways you make money in network marketing.

Enjoy!

Why The Internet Will Never Replace Network Marketing Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0000

There are all these ads on the internet that promise to teach you how to build a network marketing business over the internet. Many of them make claims such as you don't need to go to meetings anymore.

As a part time distributor this would be a very attractive offering...if only I didn't know any better.

The problem is many of the distributors aren't knowledgeable enough about the industry to understand the message behind the marketing.

You can certainly build a long term successful business without going to hotel meetings, holding in home meetings and attending weekly classroom trainings. Its just not going to be a network marketing business.

If you want to be an internet marketer then by all means do that. In fact you don't even need to be in a network marketing company to do that. Go sell gardening ebooks or ebooks about how to perfect your golf swing. Something that you are really passionate about.

However, if your intention is like my intention and that is to build a multiple six figure network marketing distributorship on a part time basis that functions with or without your involvement for the rest of your life, it is almost impossible to do that without having some type of in person meeting system in place.

There is something you get from an in person meeting system that you cannot get from the internet. It's called experience learning. Any student of learning and development can tell you this. I can take any lesson plan, teach one group online and the other group in person. The group taught in person will retain the information better almost every time.

Even internet marketers encourage you to come to their live events where they are almost always charging a lot more than what they charge for the information they sell online.

Network marketing is not selling ebooks. It is a relationship business. The stronger the relationship the more effective the production will be. There's no stronger way to build a relationship than by plugging into a system that encourages meeting people in person.

Take a look at any list of top earners in network marketing and you will find that 99% of them build their business using some type of in person meeting system.

So with that I will be headed to host my weekly business overview meeting later today. Are you plugging into some type of weekly meeting system? If not, I highly recommend that you start immediately.

You don't have to rent a hotel if you can't afford it and don't have enough people to support that. You can start by meeting in a coffee shop. Just don't forsake the importance of in person meetings under a false assumption that technology alone will build your business.

It won't.

How To Become A Top Recruiter In Your MLM Company

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:08:00 +0000

Are you looking to become a top recruiter in your company? I'm going to help you out today and show you exactly how to do just that!

I'm not going to charge you $47 for a ebook to teach you how to be a top recruiter. I'm not going to charge you $147 for an audio home study course on how to be a top recruiter. I'm not going to invite you to a $997 seminar on how to be a top recruiter. I am going to show you how to do it by letting you hear from someone who has done it.

Best of all, I'm going to share with you how to do it, absolutely free!

My first year in network marketing I made an initial warm market list of people I know. That list was 130 people. Within 6 months, I prospected all 130 people on my list and recruited 10 of them, which is about a 7% sponsor rate. During my first 12 months, I prospected 350 people from the cold market and recruited 14 of them, which is about a 4% sponsor rate.

So my first year in the company, I sponsored 24 people, so on average about 2 a month. In a company of hundreds of thousands of distributors, that would easily put you in the top 1% of the company in terms of recruiting. All by prospecting 40 people a month, 10 people a week, 2 people a day (you can take two days off)

Now here's my question to you....

What if you could do what I did in my first year, you could do that in one month? In other words, sponsor 24 people within your opportunity within a single month?

You can. In fact, I'm going to introduce you to a guy who sponsored 26 people within a single month. In fact, he recruits this many people EVERY SINGLE MONTH!

So check out JR Jackson and his article entitled Learn How I Recruit 26 People Every Month

I don't make a dime off anything you buy there and I personally think there are more effective strategies than what JR is recommending specifically in his article (although the #1 strategy he recommends, I believe is an effective strategy), the fact of the matter is you don't need the best strategy to get the best results.

There's only three things you need and JR reveals them in this article.

So once again, check out the article and then post back on this blog and let me know if you figured out what the three things are that you need to be a top recruiter.

P.S. If you are looking for ways to find people to talk to, check out my free report on the 7 strategies that I personally use to have an unlimited number of people to talk to about my business opportunity.

The 5 Indicators of Performance In Network Marketing

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Thu, 06 May 2010 23:11:00 +0000

I am fortune to be a part of an incredible team in my network marketing business. Not only is the training top notch, but we have some incredible leaders that are constantly looking for ways to improve the business and identify the best ways to create success in the business.

One of these leaders over the past 2-3 years now has been receiving personal mentorship from one of the foremost leadership experts in the world. One of the processes that this gentleman had this leader do is to identify the 5 indicators of performance in his network marketing business.

So he took his core leadership team, held a weekly conference call and had his team members report on different numbers related to the building of their respective businesses. Over the course of this 1-2 year period, they have played around and tweek with different numbers to track. Eventually, they were able to identify the 5 key indicators of performance in a network marketing business.

How effective are these indicators? Well, let's just say that out of that core leadership team, he now has 8 people on that team that earn between $75,000 and $90,000 in their network marketing business. As for himself, he is closing in on the $200,000 a year mark.

So what are the 5 indicators of performance in network marketing? I'll give you a hint. They have nothing to do with how many blog posts you write, what your search engine rankings are and how many videos you submitted to YouTube.

All of those activities are good if you are looking to build an internet marketing business. They are also good for lead generation for your network marketing business because we all need prospects to talk to about our products & opportunity. However, none of these activities have the biggest impact in the growth of your network marketing commission check.

Here are the 5 indicators that have the biggest impact on growing your commission check:

# of new contacts - These are the amount of NEW people that you have made contact with and have shared some type of tool explaining your products, services & opportunity. It is recommended that you make at least 2 contacts a day to get enough momentum to start to consistently sponsor people. However, if you really want to take your business to the next level, the benchmark is 5 contacts a day (5 days a week)

# of guests to weekly opportunity meetings - These are the number of guests (non distributors) that have showed up to a weekly business opportunity meeting. You can include both the guest that showed up for you personally, as well as the guest of distributors in your organization. When you can get at least 10 guest a week from your team showing up at an opportunity meeting, your business is about to explode (evenly spread out based on your compensation plan of course)

# of in home meetings held by your team - This is self explanatory, how many in home meetings are being held by yourself or members in your organization on a weekly basis? In home meetings are usually held by new associates, so this gives you an idea of what type of new growth is occurring in your organization. You want to get to at least 5 of these meetings on a weekly basis.

# of 3 way calls - There are two numbers you want to track here. 1st is the number of 3 way calls that you have personally made to your expert for your own prospects. The 2nd is the number of 3 way calls that you have personally received from members of your organization. You want to get to 1 a day outgoing and 3 a day incoming for your organization to really start to rock.

# promoted to for calls & events - These are the number of associates on your team that you are calling on a weekly basis to promote key events in your business. This could be training calls that your upline organization or your company may hold. This could be events that your company holds throughout the country. You want to build a big enough team that you are able to promote to at least 25 people at a time within your organization.

So we started tracking these numbers within my organization and you know what's amazing? The people in my organization that are making the most money? They are the closest to hitting these benchmarks. The people that are making the least money are the furthest away from these benchmarks. So I have found in my experience that these 5 indicators of performance can truly indicate whether a person is going to make a good commission check or not.

So how are you doing on these 5 indicators of performance?

Of course, in order to move towards the benchmark, you need people to talk to. That's why I created a free report where I reveal the 7 strategies that I personally use to build an endless list of prospects to talk to about my network marketing opportunity. If you haven't already done so, download my report for free.

Do Most People Fail In MLM & Network Marketing?

noreply@blogger.com (Roosevelt Cooper) — Mon, 03 May 2010 20:53:00 +0000

Do most people fail in MLM & Network Marketing or Direct Sales?

If you have been in this industry for a while you have probably come across this objection when sharing your business opportunity. I can almost guarantee that you have encountered it, whether it was verbalized or not.

The fact of the matter is most people not only fail in network marketing, most people fail at anything that they do in life.

Want proof? Go check out your local gym the first couple of weeks in the month of January. It is packed filled with people that are attempting to get into shape. Check out that same gym a few months later and it seems like a ghost house compared to what it looked like in January.

When I encounter a prospect that gives me this objection, my job is to educate my prospect and help him/her to not focus on the fact that most people fail. That fact is completely irrelevant to making a decision to get started in a business opportunity or not. Most people fail at everything, whether it's getting in shape, starting a traditional business, moving up the corporate ladder, investing and so on.

What the prospect TRULY needs to know to make a good decision as to whether to get started in a business or not is the answer to three simple questions:

#1 - What did the people that failed do?

#2 - What did the people that succeeded do?

#3 - Are they willing to NOT do what the people that failed did and DO what the people that succeeded did?

That's really all that matters!

To explain this concept further, check out this great video by Tim Sales on this topic! If you are viewing this post on Facebook, make sure you scroll down and click on Original Post to see the video as it will not display on Facebook itself.

Roosevelt Cooper

P.S. - One of the reasons why people fail is that they don't have enough prospects to talk to. Click here to download my free report where I reveal the 7 strategies that I personally use to build a virtually unlimited number of prospects to talk to about my network marketing business.